If you did a bad thing...

Belief+Doubt © Barbara Kruger. Photo: Cathy Carver

Last week, while delivering a virtual talk to students at Schumacher College in the UK, I presented a detailed table in an attempt to explain the relationship between normative/non-normative ethics and applied urban ethics. I appreciate that it is a rather dry and somewhat inaccessible topic.

In particular, I talked about consequentialism and the proposition that we can judge whether an action is right or wrong based on the consequences to that action. I recall at one point, a student asked who can make this judgement? It is a great question and it reminded me of a comedy sketch by the late and great Australian John Clarke and his satirist partner Bryan Dawe. The title is “The New Sliding Scale of Ethics” and I promised to share it with the class, so here it is.

The sketch captures the essence of why ethics is such a challenging topic with the statement “if you did a bad thing in order to get a result, and you got a result, then you haven’t done a bad thing.”

I suspect everyone reading this can come up with an example of a bad action that had a good outcome. This explains why debates between ethical scholars can continue for decades (without satisfactory resolution).

But at the same time, the answer is also contained in the sketch because ultimately you are the one who decides whether you did a bad thing or if the outcome was good or bad. Then broader society assesses your judgement.

The challenge becomes one of equipping people with the ability to make such judgements and therein lies the importance of ethical thinking. This is how progress happens, because at one point we collectively decide (although not everyone may agree) that a certain bad act and its related consequences are no longer acceptable behaviour.

Another question from the students was concerned with how ethics could be useful in situations where people are divided by ideologies.

While there is no simple answer to this, in our 2020 book on Ethical Cities we talk about the importance of an “ethical lens” that everyone could use to look at their city or their circumstances in general.

The basic idea here is that if everyone looks at their city through an ethical lens, this could bring into focus the many problems facing their city (i.e., poverty, homelessness, drug abuse, corruption, etc.) and they can then try to think about potential solutions, even across ideological divides.

The alternative is that we try to ignore these problems or that we conclude they are unsolvable.

How does the ethical city help?

In our book we recognize that ethics can be a sliding scale. Therefore, we propose that the ethical city be understood as an orientation, trajectory or process, not an end point or a goal.

This implies that those cities leaving “bad things” unaddressed would find themselves on a slippery slope towards a future where they become less attractive, less sustainable and more vulnerable to negative shocks and mega-trends over time.

A good example is London which is facing a housing affordability crisis as rents in the private sector impact negatively on more and more people. It is a problem that been has building over a long period and is explored in-depth by Anna Minton in her book “Big Capital - Who is London for?” and by Rowland Atkinson in “Alpha City - How London was Captured by the Super-rich.”

In contrast, cities on an ethical trajectory are likely to find themselves on a virtuous cycle of improvement since each time an issue arises, the people of that city collectively negotiate what actions are “right, fair, just and good” not what is most acceptable or expedient. Here we might point to Barcelona, which under the current administration, is at least trying to address some of its more pressing issues and is exploring pathways towards a smart, sustainable and ethical city.

This brings into play other branches of ethical thinking including deontology (what duties and obligations do we have to each other?) and virtue ethics (what is the most appropriate behavior for people in our city?). Again, everything can be negotiated and there is no blueprint or uniform answer.

Finally, you can apply descriptive ethics to seek to understand how people actually act in your city and what their notions of morality are. And you apply meta-ethics to explore how people understand notions of “good”, “bad”, “right” and “wrong” in relation to disparate topics.

How is the Ethical Cities MOOC organized?

We developed the MOOC to explore the ethical city from key perspective as follows:

Ethical Leadership of Ideas: An ethical city promotes good urban governance, transparency and accountability while weeding out corruption, conflicts of interest and the abuse of power.

Ethical Urbanism: An ethical city fosters an inclusive conversation on complex issues facing urban communities with reference to what makes a sustainable, healthy, resilient, safe, livable, economically vibrant and inclusive city.

Ethical Community Entrepreneurship: An ethical city uses its financial spending power, as well as its vision and leadership, to promote ethical business practices. These are based on integrity and trust, so that the local economy can flourish within an ethical framework of the greater good, with an emphasis on promoting shared values.

Ethical Practitioners in Democratic Communities: In an ethical city, people are empowered to participate regardless of gender, race, religion or ethnicity. People recognise their civic duties and responsibilities. The city places emphasis on leveling the playing field so that power differentials between stakeholders are moderated.

To learn more, we encourage you to visit the Ethical Cities MOOC at Future Learn (its free!).

Why the Barbara Kruger art work for the article banner?

Perhaps some of you were wondering why use Barbara Kruger’s artwork as the banner for this article? I am sure that most of you have come across her artwork in various contexts. What I like most about her work is how she explores, simply through words and pictures, various cultural representations of power, identity, value structures, consumerism and sexuality. She encourages the viewer to reflect upon who they are, what they are influenced by and what their values are.

Her artwork is like looking at the world through an ethical lens and then questioning what you see. It would be fantastic if large parts of a city adopted Kruger’s art to highlight many issues that we simply take for granted.